Accomplishments

Voice Therapy: An administrative supplement to the CHEER grant was submitted to the NIDCD and awarded in May 2012. This study focuses on usage of Voice Therapy and perceptions and barriers from both the patient and provider perspective. Data collection is in progress. See here for updates.

Sudden Hearing Loss: Through the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, David Witsell, CHEER Grant PI, was awarded an unrestricted educational grant to explore awareness of and barriers to implementation of the recently published AAO-HNSF Sudden Hearing Loss Guideline. This study will have a physician survey component and a patient data collection component. Development of materials is underway and CHEER sites will be oriented for participation in the early summer 2012.

AAO-HNSF Support for CHEER: Starting in 2012 for three years, the AAO-HNSF has signed an agreement with CHEER providing support for practice-based research initiatives. Among other things, this support allows CHEER to engage and enhance more of our investigators and study coordinators around the country supporting education and training opportunities.

Expert Panel: A panel of experts from across the country was convened in December, 2012 to assist in study development with Dr. Walter Lee (Duke University). His federal grant application regarding quality of life in head and neck cancer patients and caregivers will be submitted in early 2013.

“Practice-based Research for YOUR Practice”: Two sessions were accepted for presentation at the North Carolina/South Carolina Otolaryngology Meeting in Asheville in August 2012 and the AAO-HNSF Annual Meeting in September 2012. These sessions focused on incorporating practice-based research into practice and included a panel of academic and private practitioners.

CHEER Site Database – Underway: A CHEER Site database with information about the site and investigators has already been developed. We are working with sites to collect one year’s worth of retrospective de-identified, patient-level data to develop a searchable database for researchers and sponsors, support for pilot data needs, etc. Based on a poll of our site volumes, the database is expected to include approximately 750,000 patient level records for querying on demographics, diagnoses and procedures.